Chapter 23

The October break of 1979 was a watershed for Andrew, although the impacts were not immediately apparent. His relationship with his parents was strange, perhaps the best word to describe it was shallow. Exactly one year earlier he was in the Sick Kids undergoing radiation treatment and at the time nobody had any idea whether he would survive his cancer, whether the treatment would work. Now a year later he felt like an afterthought to the family. His dad grudgingly ran him around town, especially over to Julian’s house, but other than lifts he wasn’t asking much from his parents. There was a veneer of interest around the dinner table but he was no longer closely scrutinised or parented.

Partly this was his own fault, Andrew had pulled away over the previous nine months and was just never around. He had worked all summer and had been away from the family home for many weeks when working at the farm. But there were two other reasons. Firstly Rowan had insisted that attention be given to her once Andrew had received the all clear. A lot of the family time, the family oxygen, had been spent dealing with her. Andrew didn’t make any fuss, comment or indication that this upset him and so his parents had gone for the path of least resistance. But this was minor compared to the unexpected pregnancy.

It was as if his parents only had so much love to apportion out and Andrew was at the back of the queue. Life had settled down in the house and Andrew knew why. Part of the tension throughout his childhood was due to his father not believing that he was Andrew’s father. He didn’t totally understand all the accusations he heard being thrown back and forth but it was clear that it had been an issue between his parents throughout their marriage. That Andrew was the spitting image of his grandfather removed that tension and his parents were considerably more loving to each other, as the impending event showed!

It was all very confusing for him, it was the one thing that he had discussed with no one. If John Cuttington had still been alive then he might have been able to broach the subject but there was no one else. What was clear was that the relationship with his father was better but it was not close. Too much had been said, and fundamentally Andrew and his father agreed on very little.

So into all this Scott Gavin McLeod was born. He was 10 days early and, to Andrew, it appeared that with Scott’s arrival he ceased to exist. Andrew was 14 and his sister had just turned 12 so they were capable of coping on their own while their parents were in the hospital. But when Scott was brought home he saw his father cooing over the baby, delighted to hold him. Obviously, no baby remembers the first days after the birth but Andrew could not help compare the way his father was acting with Scott versus the way he had acted with Andrew. Andrew’s entire life, as far back as he could remember, he had no recollection of his father ever acting in such a manner to him, so obviously giving him love. Andrew didn’t know it then but it was the moment that his attitude hardened, that he started to leave his family. There was a drip, drip, drip over the following years but this was catalyst.

Compared to the chaos at home the rest of the autumn break went by too quickly and was easy. He and Julian had two days of fluctuating fortunes. At times the code seemed to come easily. But when they compiled it the result was very buggy and took a long time to fix. By the end of the two days they came to realise that this was a much larger, and more time-consuming project than they had originally thought. Still they had progressed and were not discouraged.

Work for Brian Campbell was fairly easy. He wanted some of the reports from the summer updated with new data. The format was still there Andrew just had to input over the existing data. He thought about that as he worked. Andrew had prepared some good reports for Mr. Campbell, he had told Andrew that repeatedly. What if Andrew deleted the data in the reports, then he would have blank reports? Would anyone else be interested in VisiCalc reports? He immediately thought of Mr. Strong. Hmmm. Andrew would have to think about that. After four days of eight hours he was ready to head home. Brian was pleased with the updates so Andrew raised his thought with him.

“I see. Interesting. So you want to take the templates you created and see if other businesses want to use them.”

Templates? It was the first time Andrew heard the word.

“It came to me as I was updating some of the reports with the new data. If I deleted all the data I would still have the shell of the report, or the template as you call it.”

“Smart man Andrew, you are going to go far. You developed all of these for me. I am okay with you using the templates as long as there is none of my data on them obviously. Other than that I say go for it. Bring a bunch of disks with you tomorrow when you come for dinner and we can delete the data and save the reports.”

Andrew wanted to hug him but managed to restrain himself. Although he didn’t know it at the time this was the first tentative step to forming his own computer company.

The weather was really crappy when school started back. Andrew was cold when he got back from his run and knew that he would need to get warmer clothes for running now. He made it to school at his usual time and met Kearns at the pool. Kearns was normally changed by the time Andrew arrived and was just waiting for him to get there so that they could start swimming. Today though he was waiting in the changing rooms.

“Andrew, did you run into Sandra Dickie while you were at the Commonwealth last week?”

Kearns was looking at him in an odd manner. Sandra Dickie. Who? Oh yeah, the woman at the Pool with all the questions.

“It wasn’t last week it was the Friday school broke up but yeah I did talk to her. To be honest she asked me a bunch of questions and I left as quickly as I could. She seemed to think I should know her but I had never seen or heard of her. She wanted to know where I swam so I told her here.”

Andrew looked at Kearns closely.

“Did she contact you? Am I in trouble?”

Kearns started laughing.

“You have no idea, do you?”

About what? Everything? Anything? Enough with this mystery.

“What did this woman do? Cure cancer? Well I know for a fact that she didn’t, so who is she?”

He was starting to get annoyed about all this.

“Andrew, Sandra Dickie won several medals at the 1974 Commonwealth Games, was in the team last year although she didn’t medal and is one of the National team coaches. She is probably the second most famous Scottish swimmer after David Wilkie.”

Andrew shrugged.

“Okay, I understand and her achievements are impressive. But the second most famous Scottish swimmer is still pretty obscure. How was I meant to know? She needs to not assume everybody knows who she is. I am surprised she doesn’t get more confused meetings like mine.”

Kearns lifted his hand jokingly.

“You need a smack on the head sometimes.”

Kearns lowered his hand and looked at him.

“You don’t get it do you. One of the National coaches took the time to come over and complement you on your swimming. That is a big deal. What had you swum?”

This all still seemed a lot of fuss about nothing.

“CCF finished early because of the break so I went over to the Commonwealth. I spent an hour just swimming back and forth not really trying. I was using the time to think about some school stuff. At the end before I left I moved over to the fast lane and did 400m. I wasn’t timing myself but I went hard. That’s all. Can we talk about this at the end please? I want to get some laps in.”

They finally got into the pool, but Andrew did not swim well that morning. Too distracted.

“I can see this upset your rhythm this morning Andrew. Keep up the hard work and if your priorities change you’ll be on the swim team immediately. You are a semi member already.”

Kearns was a decent bloke. As Andrew arrived for at the form room he was confronted with his main issue. What was he going to do about Kate? He had upset her, completely unintentionally and unknowingly, but upset her he had. Time to try and fix some of this drama. That is easy to say but when the young woman you want to talk to is sitting in the middle of a group of five it gives pause for thought. Andrew bottled it. No way could he approach all five and try and talk to Kate. They were back to moving as a pack between classes and so the only way he could talk to her was to approach the whole group. After the last class before lunch he decided to do it. Andrew could taste bile in his mouth and his heart was beating hard. Confidence Andrew. Confidence. He thought of Leslie and smiled and went over to the group. 4 scowls and the top of one head. Ignoring the others Andrew asked.

“Kate, could I talk to you for a minute please?”

She looked up at him. Her face flashed through several emotions in a second. Anger, curiosity, anger again, disdain, hope, oh look hello anger.

“Why?”

Sullen but at least she had said something.

“To talk about what happened before the break and try and explain.”

Andrew tried to look sincere. Kate looked conflicted.

“Come on Kate, I think I can explain it. Please.”

He was veering perilously close to begging by this point.

“Okay, I suppose.”

Hardly a glowing endorsement but at this point Andrew was just glad for a conversation. Although it was a blustery October day they walked out away from the main building. Kate was staring straight ahead and although he didn’t look to check he was pretty sure that we were being watched by multiple sets of eyes. Time to try and straighten this out.

“Kate, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just have no clue about women. I really don’t. I think that part of our issue is that we are not talking the same language. I just don’t know how to react. Remember the first day we met and you said Dougie looked like he was about to pass out sitting next to you in maths. Kate, at the end of first year I was Dougie. Christ, Dougie was cooler than I was.”

She looked round at this but Andrew just nodded and carried on.

“You know what I went through in second year. I started working on my fitness the day after I got the all clear from the hospital. That first day I had to do wall push ups, as I couldn’t manage a proper one. I was an 88lb skeleton. Since then I have worked out every day bar two for the last nine months. I didn’t work out to look this way Kate. I worked out because I wanted to get fit and stay fit after my scare with cancer, nothing more. I know this seems not to make sense but I still think of myself as like Dougie or even worse cancer me. So when girls tell me that I am starting to look like a hunk or start asking about girlfriends I have no clue, none. I had to get my best friend to explain it to me. Do you know how she explained it to me?”